Tbqh, I sincerely hope whenever they do reintroduce the Lightbound they don’t just make the Naaru all these evil baddies that actually want to convert da universe. It completely contradicts their TBC (and generally pre-Xe’ra) characterisation as actually incredibly noble, selfless and good beings that will happily sacrifice their lives even if it’s to protect a race that actively tortured them, or will protect and nurture a city from the ashes to turn it into a haven for those affected by war on a dead world no matter what race or side they were a part of.
It’d really suck if they turned what is, in a world of morally grey things, a genuinely cool force of pure good into shady baddies actually.
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The UN’s definition of a genocide is a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.
Forced conversion falls under that especially since the AU Army of the Light’s campaign is one of racial and religious persecution.
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it’s genocide but the orcs kind of asked for it tbh
The Naaru aren’t a monolith nor a hivemind. A’dal was all for killing Xe’ra’s chosen one without mercy…
Kur’thalos fought the Legion to a standstill with only the Night Elves
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The ‘actually elisande saved the resistance by not opening the second front’ never sat right with me.
It feels like a retcon that exists purely to make the Night Elf efforts during the War of the Ancients less impressive.
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Yet literally all but Xe’ra were shown off to be genuinely great people(?). Hell so was Xe’ra until the “mwahaha you MUST join the lightforged mr stormrage” heel twist that existed solely so the cool demon elf could do another epic 1-liner.
Probably on account of the mass slavery, corruption of holy sites, mass killing, forced mutation and corruption of orcs, etc. etc.
But either way, my argument wasn’t that the Naaru are a monolith, but that unless turned to the void state they are all uniquely charitable and good. And it would be REALLY tiring for that to be twisted into another mOrAlLy GrEy situation where actually they’re just as bad as everyone else because they just wanna get their cosmic force-sales numbers up just like everything else in the universe does.
I would rather say it highlights the despair of everything they were facing - War of the Ancients wasn’t just [Night elf NPC] auto attacking [Demon NPC]. It was the end of the world.
After seeing what became of Suramar, Elisande’s continued loyalty to Azshara would have been really out of character for someone whose characterisation was always the desire to save her people and at that point they were still one.
My bad G, you’re right on this one, though frick Desdel though
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Mhm, I should add, since I’m currently re-reading those novels, even Broxigar regards Kur’talos as an amazing fighter, going as far as to think he’s worthy to be called an orc.
But yes, Desdel bad, good riddance.
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Introducing a new type of Elves and inserting ‘Actually, were it not for them, the Night Elves would have been defeated’, while actively detaching the playable Night Elves from the city of Suramar which beforehand had been relatively big in the backstory of the Night Elves, just never sat well with me.
I get why they wrote it, don’t take me wrong, they had to explain a few things.
But I don’t like the implications that the Night Elves only won because the Newer Flashier Night Elves With Arcane Flavour, did something we had never even seen or heard of before to save them all.
they’re the same elves at the time it happened
they were literally just night elves
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Orc bad. Elf good.
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I’m playing Helwyr again(?) and I’m commissioning art of him btw
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That is true.
But it makes the Kaldorei resistance which the Playable Night Elves are derived from look weaker while it makes Suramar’s Highborn which the Nightborne are derived from look better to the detriment of the resistance.
I’m sure they could have written something to make the Nightborne look good without weakening the accomplishments of the Night Elf Resistance.
While, yes, kinda, with the Scarlets it always felt like they misunderstood the message of the Light.
They were devoted, but did not have an authentic relationship with what the virtues of the Light stood for. It was, all in all, an order which twisted the teachings, teachings that were seemingly good. To the point that when push came to shove, the Light answered more to their enemies, not them.
With the Scarlets, it felt like the Light was a force of good which was being misunderstood and misused by the organization, and in a few occasions it’s even told the Light resisted some of the crusaders there.
The Light is good was reinforced in TBC, with the naaru being this supposed quasi-divine angels meant to do good, accomplish deeds that even the Aspects could not (WotLK), and with a few minor slights that may have made the Light a neutral force, it was still intended to be a force of good.
Then with the Q&A and post-TBC lore the Light took a more and more “neutral approach”, until Legion where the Naaru was basically an abuser all along. Before the forces of the Light were kinda good.
Can’t wait for the inevitable “the void isn’t bad actually” expansion
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They were literally night elves when all that happened though. And Suramar was literally under the water before it was retconned away in Legion. It wasn’t that incredibly important to the identity of the Night Elves really.
Honestly I think that’s just your view? Playing Legion I thought “damn these ancient night elves are really cool and awesome” and also “wow these nightborne that were night elves are also super cool and awesome”.
I assure you, the soul-munching mentally-deranged ourple magic is just as bad as the stuff that Preacher Dave from Northshire uses to heal hurt people.
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Fun fact. They went as far as to edit an old WoW webcomic. The one in which Anduin becomes old.
There, it was mentioned a “final war” against the darkness. Velen called to the Light - “Light help us” or something - he doesn’t anymore.
The books and after-event stuff for historic events are hilarious in the problems they cause.
Tomb of Sargaras in WC3 Frozen Throne - Ruins and tropical islands and etc.
Legion - Uh, did we just miss all this other stuff here…?
Night Elves encountering Orcs and Tauren for the ‘first time’ in WC3.
Later, we find than Huln Highmountain was fighting in the War of the Ancients and his descendents were blessed by Cenarius… and people just forgot, apparently?
They need to check what’s in the water on Azeroth, or if they have a natural Gas leak I swear 
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The Night Elves are really old, they’re probably suffering from a collective memory-loss issue. At least that’s the best explanation I can think of.